


It's Not in the Dress

by Siacatmesecat



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:57:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siacatmesecat/pseuds/Siacatmesecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma unlocks her mental drawer of childhood daydreams marked "Mother: Shopping With One" and shreds them. This isn’t cute or fun or oozing with female bonding. This sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not in the Dress

Emma unlocks her mental drawer of childhood daydreams marked "Mother: Shopping With One" and shreds them. This isn’t hypothetical first-day-of-school jeans and prom dresses and birthday outfits and winter coats. This isn’t cute or fun or oozing with female bonding. This sucks. 

“Look, Mary-Margaret,” she says, throwing her hands up when she can’t find the right words to finish the objection politely. “You’re out of your mind; I’m not going to—“

“But you’re a _princess_ ,” says Mary-Margaret, or Snow White, or The Queen, or—but she’s not totally comfortable with “Mom” yet. Emma crosses her arms over her chest. If the gesture doesn’t do much to fight the cold in the newly-inhabited castle, at least it keeps her t-shirt firmly pinned to her chest. Her imitation-leather jacket, already peeled off despite much protest, is lying across the back of a couch, looking about as mournful as an actual skinned dead animal. “You should dress like a princess,” Mary-Margaret-Snow-White continues. Her eyes sparkle like craft-glue glitter. “We’re finally home, and it’s been rough, but things are going back to the way they were. The way they should be.” She beams at Emma, who raises her eyebrows.

“I’m not wearing that.” 

“Just for this once! You’ll be beautiful.”

“I don’t think I could even breathe in that. Let alone fit.”

“Well, maybe with a bit of a—“

“If you say ‘corset’—“

“Oh, come on, Emma!” 

For just a moment Mary-Margaret-Snow-White drops the Snow White and slides back into overworked elementary school teacher, frustrated roommate, first real friend territory. Her eyes flash and it might as well be a sucker punch to the solar plexus. Emma’s ears burn. 

“Look, Mary-Margare—look.” Emma takes a deep breath, sighs, uncrosses and recrosses her arms. She turns desperately and paces to the wall and back, furiously trying to think about tact. It doesn’t come real easy to her. If she’d been in the mood for a sense of humor, she’d blame it on gene contributions from David. Charming. Whatever. “Look.” She takes a deep breath.

“I’m looking,” says the woman who is, on top of everything else, her mother. In Mary-Margaret-Snow-White’s hands, the spun-sugar confection of a princess dress rustles like tissue paper wrapping on Christmas morning. 

“Please don’t make me,” Emma says at last. The words are out of her mouth before she can think about how infantile they sound, and in the ensuing silence she hopes that her… _mother_ didn’t catch what might have been a hint of a whine. “It’s not me,” she says, waving her hands. “It’s too—I don’t know—it’s so, so poofy. And it’s got like, that tiny wasp waist thing and the jewel-y beads and I just don’t—“

“I used to love dresses like this,” her mother says quietly. It's Snow White's eyes that fall to the gleaming silver braid around the collar, flutter over the twinkling stones set into the embroidery, linger on the cupcake puckers of silk that spill out from the bejeweled waistline. “I had a whole room full of them. All different colors. All different styles. Pretty things.” She laughs hopelessly and shrugs, then gently drapes the garment over the couch, next to the jacket. The weight of the skirt is too heavy, and the sparkly monster slithers down the back of the couch to explode, in a puff of netting and shimmer, over the floor. They stare at the aftermath together.

“I wanted it to be real for you,” Mary-Margaret-Snow-White says at last, shrugging again. “Being a princess. It’s not like it’s in the dress or anything. I haven’t worn one in ages, you know.” Her eyes crinkle up into a slow smile. “In a lifetime.” 

Emma swallows, crosses the room, hooks a tentative arm around her friend’s shoulders. Her mom’s shoulders. Whatever. She swallows again.

“For what’s it worth, I always thought you’d make a great princess. If the curse was real. Mary Margaret’s got the, uh, the selflessness and love-everyone thing down really well. You know. And Snow White’s got—when we came through the portal for the first time—when you shot that ogre thing—and dealing with Cora—“ She stops, swallows again. Her ears are really burning now, and she remembers where her arm is and snatches it back. It takes her a second to realize that the sniffling noises aren’t just her own stupidness; her mom is smiling this watery smile and trying to dab at the corners of her eyes without being obvious.

“What I’m trying to say is, I think you’re a pretty good princess,” Emma finishes.

“You’ve got it in you,” her mom says. “You’re a fighter, you’re a leader, and they trust you. You’ll have a lot of work to do, and a lot of adjustments to make, but we’ll be here for you.”

“Right.” The swallowing isn’t doing anything for the lump in her throat.

“You don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it. I’m sure we can have someone pull together a—a nice suit for you. Something with leather trim, maybe.”

“And no corset.”

“No corset. But no jeans, either—you’ve got to at least try to look a little more formal, there’s convention, and protocol, and—“

Snow White rescues the dress from the floor and throws it onto the couch; she pulls Emma in front of the mirror and goes on and on about court behavior and appropriate fabric choices and blouse styles and fur trim and crown jewels, and Emma unfolds her arms and lets herself try to picture it. It’s not hypothetical first-day-of-school jeans and prom dresses and birthday outfits and winter coats, but it's got one thing the other stuff doesn't. It's real.


End file.
